Computer error led to Medicaid mailing problem

Wednesday

Sep 25, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 25, 2013 at 1:00 PM

The number of Missouri Medicaid recipients whose personal information was mailed to wrong addresses has grown to more than 25,000.

The Department of Social Services announced last month that some personal information of more than 1,350 Medicaid recipients went to wrong addresses over a 20-month period. A software programming error apparently caused mail to be sent by Infocrossing Inc. to previous or inaccurate addresses for the recipients. Those affected were notified by MO HealthNet, the state's Medicaid administrator.

Department spokeswoman Rebecca Woelfel said the letters were not all sent to the same address. The error affected some MO HealthNet Managed Care Program correspondence sent between Oct. 16, 2011, and June 7, 2013. That error was corrected June 6, Woelfel said.

MO HealthNet is now notifying an additional 25,461 individuals that some of their personal information might have been mailed to an incorrect address by Infocrossing between Dec. 21, 2009, and June 7, 2013, because of a computer system error discovered July 25. Woelfel said the computer error has since been corrected.

Woelfel has not yet responded to a question about whether the department expects to discover more inadvertent mailings.

She said yesterday in a news release that no medical or financial information was released as a result of the inadvertent mailings. The type of information released potentially included participant names, date of birth, MO HealthNet identification account number, county name, phone number and the last four digits of the Social Security number.

Individuals who receive a notification from MO HealthNet about the release of their information are asked to call 877-309-0021 to address any concerns and to learn how to protect against identity theft.

MO HealthNet and Infocrossing are offering affected consumers free credit-monitoring services and enhanced identity-theft protection services for two years.

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